Ableton Forum

I can't get my MPD18 pads to work at all as a control surface. I've tried the native MPD18 script, and also tried writing a user script, both to no avail. Any ideas? I want to play a drum rack.

you should only have to plug it in and set it up in the midi preferences under the control surfaces...its easy peasy..i wouldn't use the akai software...live supports the mpd18....it should automatically map to the drum rack.....you should undo what you did with the scripts and all and just start over....seriously, you should just be able to plug it in and it will work...
oh....check this, is the track with the drum rack on that you are trying to play is it armed?? the tracks have to be armed in order for it to work.

eddiex wrote:you should only have to plug it in and set it up in the midi preferences under the control surfaces...its easy peasy..i wouldn't use the akai software...live supports the mpd18....it should automatically map to the drum rack.....you should undo what you did with the scripts and all and just start over....seriously, you should just be able to plug it in and it will work...
oh....check this, is the track with the drum rack on that you are trying to play is it armed?? the tracks have to be armed in order for it to work.

Surely you don't have to arm the drum track if the MPD18 is a control surface? You should be able to lock the MPD18 to the drum rack and play the drum pads at any time, without arming the track. Otherwise it would be no different from simply triggering notes on the drum rack like you would from a midi keyboard? the MPD18 slider works ok as a control surface element without arming the track, its just the pads, no midi is received from the MPD18's pads.

that is exactly what the drum rack and the mpd is....think of it like this, each cell and pad on your drum rack and mpd represents a note like say on a keyboard....it is a little more powerful than that, but when you break it down......that is all drum rack is and the mpd is....its kind of an equipment mind trick that makes you think you are doing something else besides triggering a midi note that represents a sample, that you could play on a keyboard if you wanted to. you can actually use your mpd to play keyboard notes using some of live's preset instruments.
and yeah you do have to have the track armed.

eddiex wrote:that is exactly what the drum rack and the mpd is....think of it like this, each cell and pad on your drum rack and mpd represents a note like say on a keyboard....it is a little more powerful than that, but when you break it down......that is all drum rack is and the mpd is....its kind of an equipment mind trick that makes you think you are doing something else besides triggering a midi note that represents a sample, that you could play on a keyboard if you wanted to. you can actually use your mpd to play keyboard notes using some of live's preset instruments.
and yeah you do have to have the track armed.

But thats not how control surfaces work - you're just using your MPD18 as a straight forward midi controller. I want to lock the control surface to the drum track with the blue hand, which means you won't need to arm the track to play the pads.

[quote="staplesyrup"


But thats not how control surfaces work - you're just using your MPD18 as a straight forward midi controller. I want to lock the control surface to the drum track with the blue hand, which means you won't need to arm the track to play the pads.[/quote]


That's actually not what the Blue Hand means, you still need to arm the track or turn the monitoring to In to hear anything- the blue hand just signifies that the given device or rack is "in focus", it doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you'll be able to hear the signal.

As eddiex says, drum rack cells are triggered by MIDI notes, which the mpd pads send out, not cc's, so one way or another you're going to be using it as a midi controller if you want to trigger drum cells. What the control surface instant mapping does for the mpd is that it will automatically map the pads to the visible cells in the drum rack. This means if you have a blue-handed drum rack that has more than 16 active cells, the mpd will automatically trigger the cells you currently have in focus, and if you move the selector grid (I dunno what it's actually called, sorry) up or down. So the lower right hand corner pad will always trigger the lower right hand cell of the 16 currently selected cells of a drum rack that is selected by the blue hand. But you will still need to arm the track or change the monitoring to In to hear it, no way around that.

OK thanks dudes I get it now

nevermind